In the ski industry, it’s not hard to find the usual smattering
of upstarts trying to be the next big thing. On the same note, it’s not
uncommon to learn that many of these companies outsource their supply lines to
foreign shores, leaning on the manufacturing expertise, and cheaper costs, of
more long-established players.

The Company

With so many fish trying to be big in a pond that just keeps
getting smaller, some entrepreneurs and innovators are cultivating new
approaches to the age-old craft. Graham Sparks is the epitome of this new wave
of ski manufacturer. Injecting soul into his skis like a well-placed IV drip,
Sparks has been quietly and methodically honing his craft in the sleepy
backwater of Aspen, CO—not the most obvious redoubt for a craftsman, with its
celebrities and pop-up champagne bars, but a place that’s certainly fed the
main vein of ski culture in its time. With the bottom line secondary to his
pursuit of excellence, Graham is redefining the template of what it means to design,
build, and sell a sick setup.

High performance--higher art. Graham Sparks brings soul to his skis.

From his unassuming workshop where a simple loft bed provides
nightly relief from hours working with sandpaper and resin, Graham Sparks
started
Grizzly
Boards
three years ago. His first two winters were spent largely
on research and development; dialing in construction and materials, personally
testing each cut and shape until the feel was just right. By last spring,
Sparks was confident that his skis could shred, so he began to develop the
aesthetic that would eventually define his brand.

Contrary to the overwhelming horde of people trying to win a
piece of the pie, Sparks does nearly everything by hand. With a solid
foundation in carpentry taught early by his father, he has utilized his skills
in building to move towards the goal of perfection.

What I'm doing is more of a craft. Everything is done by hand. Everything is inspected by me. All the graphics are hand painted. I have a couple different artists locally...It's a little piece of art. It's just trying to get the industry back to craftsmanship rather than just pumping out skis.

The Context

To understand what motivates a visionary like Graham Sparks,
it’s important to understand how he came to be building skis in the first place.
Originally from the flat seaside plains of Rhode Island, Graham grew up skiing
with his family, chiefly his father, most every weekend. During his teen years,
he dreamt of going to college, joining the Peace Corps, and eventually becoming
a teacher. However, as is often the case, life had other plans.

During his college years, Graham’s Father Kenneth began having
cognitive issues; he’d forget words or act oddly out of character. At first,
the doctors believed it to be the early onset of Alzheimer’s, but a later
diagnosis confirmed it to be Frontotemporal Dementia, a slow moving killer that
strips personality, memory, and the ability to speak from those it afflicts.
For the next six years, Graham, along with his mother and sister, watched as
the man they’d known slowly slipped away.

During his father’s long decline, Graham began looking for
relief—some sort of distraction to break away from the pain. In between his sophomore
and junior years of college, Graham found himself one day in his family’s barn,
building pressure molds out of two-by-fours, making a rough attempt at building
a pair of skis. He threw himself into the work, driven and possessed by a newfound
passion that linked him, existentially, to the fading light of his
father. “It was just a way for me to get out of my house and clear my head
and turn my frustration into something real,” Graham said, looking back.

Graham’s first ski was, by his own admission, a total piece of
crap. The tips were nearly a quarter inch thick. It didn’t flex—it was
just a big ol’ chunk of wood. Yet, these early failures were only kindling for
the fire, and upon every attempt, the skis got better.

During those early days, fresh from the garage and still covered
in sap and sawdust, Graham would try to show his father what he’d built. He
wanted to lift the veil that had fallen over his father’s eyes, but by that
time, his dad was mostly gone. Holding aloft one of his recent creations,
Graham hoped for a glimmer, a flash of recognition behind the glazed eyes.
Instead, his father stared vacantly at the lifeless sticks in his son’s hands,
pacing onward arbitrarily through the house, stumbling past family portraits
from ski vacations long forgotten.

Turning powerlessness into purpose, Graham set into his first pair of skis in the family barn while his father suffered through Frontotemporal dementia.

As his father’s condition worsened, Graham began burying himself
deeper and deeper in this ski craft; the rest of his family similarly absorbed
themselves in new passions as Ken Sparks declined further and further into
dementia. His mother immersed herself in photography, and eventually started
her own business. Graham’s sister had been successful in publishing in New York
City, but the experience of taking care of her father all those years pushed
her to change course as well, and she decided to commit to a new career in
nursing, where she could take care of those in a similar state of suffering. Like a phoenix from the ashes, each family
member emerged from that six-year ordeal transformed, but strengthened.

Once he took a turn for the worse--that's when I really started to put the time in. I'm sure subconsciously there was a connection because my Dad and I would ski every weekend together. But yeah, I don't know--It's weird to think about.

Spark’s path in life changed when on a whim he emailed a small
ski manufacturer, 333, based in Mammoth Lakes, California asking for a job. Not
expecting a reply, he was surprised when they promptly invited him out to
California to do a ski-building internship and hone his skills. A month after
that email exchange, Graham’s father passed away. Two weeks after that, he
started his drive West.

Graham’s time apprenticing was a formative experience. He’ll
readily concede that he didn’t find his dream in California, but he learned
skills that would enable him to discover it eventually. In true bohemian style,
the 333 crew had a traveling workshop trailer that they could park anywhere to
build skis. He recalls fondly a promotional trip taken up Hwy 1 with 333,
stopping often to practice the craft while overlooking the Pacific. The smell
of ocean breeze contrasted well with that of epoxy and other industrial
chemicals, causing Graham to undergo long periods ecstasy that were either
induced by the scenery, the workshop, or perhaps both.

On the mend with the Mammoth-based 333 crew, Sparks eats up the sunset along the Pacific Ocean on Highway 1.

There, on the cusp of land and sea, Graham would often pour
himself a hot brew while sitting on top of the trailer to enjoy the sunset. To
an outsider, knowing that his dad had passed away only months earlier, one
would assume that he carried a great sadness during those times. The truth was,
Graham was filled with joy that his dad had finally found peace. His dad’s
suffering, and the suffering of his family, was over. Sipping French-pressed
coffee, soaking in the fading sun on that jagged coast, he felt free, pure and
simple.

Graham later visited some family friends in Aspen for a
Thanksgiving holiday. While there, he found a job tuning skis and a workshop
that was up for rent. He signed up for both, and never looked back.

The Craft

Early rising in the shop, with accomodations just above the ski press.

On any typical day, Graham wakes up early. His breath
illuminated by the beam of his headlamp, he rolls out of his workshop cot and
puts the coffee on. Bleary-eyed from another late evening in the ski shop (his
night job), he heads out on dawn patrol and is usually slashing pow before most
of us are awake. Aspen—the legendary playground of the wealthy—has become an
incubator for
Grizzly Boards and Graham’s unique take on ski manufacturing.
Combining his living space and workshop, Graham saves on rent by sacrificing
domestic luxury for the merit of achieving his innermost dreams. In a very
literal sense, Sparks lives, breathes, and thinks skis.

Graham wakes up—skis. He eats his morning cereal—skis. Comes
back home from skiing—skis. There is nothing to interrupt his creative focus,
and by default, he kicks ass at what he does.

Graham Sparks rips the backcountry on a self-made setup.

In contemporary mountain culture, there is a lot of talk about
how “core” someone is. What cliff was hucked, how gnarly the line was, last call-first
chair, blah blah blah. The truth is, few individuals can rival Graham Sparks in
the realm of “core” criteria. The guy is a physical manifestation of what it
means to be dedicated and passionate about skiing. He’s given his life over to
his trade and personifies the bohemian that draws purpose and meaning from his
craft.

To put it all in perspective, Grizzly Boards is a ski company
that is client-based, meaning that when you order a pair of sticks from Graham,
he’s going to make skis for you—himself. This manner of ski production is the
inverse of what most ski companies do, making a broad assortment for different
terrain and body types to saturate the market. Instead, Graham approaches his
craft on an individual, humanistic basis. In his manufacturing progression,
he’s certainly identified profiles that work well for certain types of people,
but these are only guiding templates.

Graham Sparks honing his craft in his one-man factory in Aspen, Colorado.

On the hill, Graham prefers a generous all-mountain cut. 98 cm
underfoot, moderate rocker in the tip, none to speak of in the tail.
Oftentimes, when a reliable powder forecast comes through the pipeline, Graham
will start building a fresh pow setup. “Two to three days in advance of a storm,
I’ll go to work on a new pair of skis, experimenting with shape and width,”
Sparks explains, “Even for a big powder day, I always leave a little camber
underfoot for stability for once you’re back on the firm stuff.”

In short, he's an artist.

I still learn from every pair of skis that I
make. If I weren't learning, I'd be doing something wrong.

In many ways, Sparks is ahead of his time, or perhaps right on
schedule. Most people in the mountains nowadays are craving that home brew
authenticity. The buy local, shop local, eat green, regionally-sourced movement
that is increasingly willing to open their wallets for quality. Sure, people
are always going to order a PBR or Budweiser, but every year the market share
grows for entrepreneurs such as Sparks who aren’t willing to sacrifice integrity
for a profit margin.